


Delicate

by Ever-so-reylo (Ever_So_Reylo)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dating, F/M, First Dates, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Grad student Rey, Inspired by Music, Politician Ben, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:01:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14004687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ever_So_Reylo/pseuds/Ever-so-reylo
Summary: “Do you do this a lot?”He doesn’t quite know what she means, by 'this'. It could be anything. Do you have sex a lot? Do you take women back to your place? After barely one date? After they didn’t even let you pay for their beer? Do you sit on your couch and make out with them for over one hour, completely dressed, as if you were still sixteen? Do you fancy yourself in love at first sight?It doesn’t matter, because the answer to each and every question is the same.“No.”Or:This isn’t for the best. He has a terrible reputation, and she is as beautiful as the sunrise.





	Delicate

**Author's Note:**

> This pile of garbage is actually even trashier than usual, and it’s 150% inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA), no point in trying to deny it. I know, I persist in disappointing my family, friends, and cat.
> 
> The idea to use Johnson as Rey's last name, in honor of our beloved Rian, is from [galacticprideandprejudice](https://galacticprideandprejudice.tumblr.com/) (I can't find the specific post, do send it my way if you have it handy!).

 

He’s only half awake—mind wandering between next week’s International Monetary Fund meeting and a pair of pretty eyes—when the phone on his nightstand lights up. It’s probably work—either something very minor that doesn’t warrant his attention or some colossal clusterfuck that will have to wait until morning to be sorted out, anyway.

His arm reaches out before his brain can formulate the words _sleep hygiene_.

 

**Rey:** <I’m feeling a beer>

 

Ben can’t quite recall what he was thinking when he gave her his phone number.

_You weren’t_ , a voice inside his head offers. _You weren’t thinking, because she was smiling. At you._

Ben sighs. It was the smile. And the legs, and the British accent, but mainly the fact that she was actually _talking_  with Ben instead of giving him a sidelong glare, or turning to a friend to whisper something probably true—but possibly _not_ —about him, or lifting up her phone to snap a low quality picture of him doing something absolutely mundane, like eating a sandwich or a bag of chips.

The people who want to talk with him these days—they’re few, and usually not people Ben cares to have a conversation with.

But her…

“I’m Rey. With an _e_ ,” she’d said, handing Ben a cup of coffee he couldn’t quite recall ordering.

His mind had been wiped clean.

“Unusual name,” he’d replied, to avoid saying something else, something sappy, or creepy, or both. Like, ‘great’. Like, ‘beautiful’.

“I know.” She was still smiling, and in that moment Ben was certain that he’d never seen anything quite like that. “My last name is Johnson, though. So that should make up for it.”

He had nodded, staring at her. Blinking stupidly.

“I’m Ben.”

Her laughter. _God._

“With an _e,_ too?”

“Yes.”

“Ben Solo. I know.”

_Of course_. His heart had sunk, because if she knew who he was, then—then this conversation was surely over. Except that for some unfathomable reason she was still smiling, and pointing at the name badge clipped to Ben’s jacket.

“Ah.” He’d tried—and likely failed—to keep his relief from being too obvious. “I forgot to take it off.” So maybe she _didn’t_ know. Maybe, _maybe_ , maybe he could still—

“Also, I watch the news. I know who you are.”

 

**Rey:** <I know this place on the East Side. It’s a bit of a dive, but…>

**Rey:** <No'but', actually. Just a dive. You in?>

 

Ben doesn’t even remember saying yes.

 

…

 

Rose is—

Well. Rey probably shouldn’t have told Rose where she’s going—or who she's going with—in the first place, so whatever Rose _is_ , Rey is just going to have to suck it up.

“No. Fucking. Way.”

“Rose.” Rey clucks her tongue. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“He is a _Republican_.”

“Independent,” Rey corrects automatically.

“But I bet he was a Republican at some point. He’s sure working for a Republican administration. Oh my God! He’s—Rey, you know that the Solo bill is called Solo because _he_ came up with it, right? He’s such a dick—I’m never going to be able to pay back my student loans while gigantic corporations get huge-ass tax cuts! And it’s all his damn fault.”

Rey sighs. “You know that the bill was heavily rewritten for the Senate. For the worse.”

“Still! Rey, he’s part of that administration. And he’s an asshole, anyway. Wasn’t he the one who made that reporter cry when he told her that the idiocy of her question could not be overstated?”

_Was he?_ Rey’s not sure she’s heard about that. She shrugs, trying to decide if another coat of mascara would be overkill.

Probably. “He was nice to me. And he’s—” _different_ “—cute.”

“He’s—how is he cute?! He looks like a Sasquatch. With moles! You’re so picky all the time—how are you gonna go out with this guy over _Poe_?”

“Maybe I have a mole kink.”

Rose’s grimace of disgust makes Rey laugh.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to yourself. To me. To the _world._ ”

Rey leans into Rose and kisses her on the cheek, grabbing her purse from the bed, opening it to check for… yep. There’s one, hidden in an inner pocket she only discovered recently. Rey hopes it’s not expired, since it’s been… A long time. _So_ long.

Too long.

She thinks of Ben, of his slightly parted lips as she handed him his coffee, of the way he stared down at her as she saved his number into her phone and then typed her name into his. A shiver licks up her spine.

“Rey. If you are in a hostage situation, blink twice.”

“Don’t wait up for me, okay?”

“Rey! I swear to God, if you’re not home in one hour I’m calling the police on that psycho.”

“Feel free to turn off the porch light. ‘Night!”

Rose yells something else—something with the words _amber_ and _alert_ —as Rey makes her way out of the house.

Once she reaches the sidewalk, she takes a deep breath. The smell of jasmine, more intense than usual in the warmth of the summer night, fills her lungs and soothes her brain.

She is smiling as she hails a cab.

 

…

 

_Meet me in the back_ , she texts Ben while he’s driving, but when he gets to the bar she hasn’t arrived yet.

The place is not as much of a dive as he expected and Ben is relieved, not because he is worried about tonight, but because it sounds like a bar she comes to a lot, and Ben already lays awake at night obsessing over stuff like trade deficits, and income brackets, and the national debt; he’d rather not add to the list the mental image of Rey all alone in a skeevy place, surrounded by skeevy people.

He’s gets them two craft beers and finds a booth, takes off his sunglasses—a necessary evil that at eleven PM only makes him look stupid—, and is staring dispassionately in the direction of a poorly played pool match when she comes in. Ben only notices because one of the players turns to look towards entrance, and then gestures his friend to do the same in that obnoxious way that men their age— _men_ _all ages_ —really should have outgrown.

They’re ogling a pretty woman in a pretty silk summer dress, that looks a lot like Rey would if she let her hair down, and wore heels and a bit of makeup, and—

_Rey_.

Ben’s brain splits. Half of it stands, and signals Rey that he’s here, he’s been waiting for her, and holds her gaze as she makes her way around the tables and towards him. The other half is thinking about the men by the pool table, temper rising and jaw clenching, and it’s been a long time since Ben has beaten up somebody but not that long, not _too_ long, and those assholes have it coming.

What stops him is not that he’d probably get arrested, or that his security detail would find out that he sneaked out without telling them, or that the President would surely call him into the Oval Office and say 'something something PR'—and then fire him. It’s not even the very reasonable consideration that he has met this girl for a grand total of two times and about ten minutes, and that she probably wouldn’t appreciate him going all caveman over her.

Nope.

What stops him is her smile as she walks up to him.

“Hey.” She sounds happy. And breathless.

Though not as breathless as he feels.

“Hey.”

 

…

  

“Sorry I’m so late. My roommate…” She gestures vaguely and Ben nods in understanding, even though he cannot possibly have a clue who or what Rey is referring to.

Rey sits down and tries not to stare at him, but he _is_ staring a her a little bit—if surreptitiously—so she ends up allowing herself a couple of glances.

_Look at you_ , Rey wants to say. _Just look at you._

He’s wearing a blue t-shirt, and dark wash jeans. And _sneakers_.

Ben Solo is in a bar with her, wearing _Nikes_.

He doesn’t even look like Ben Solo.

Except that he does.

But he doesn’t.

“Is she all right?”

“Mm?”

“Your roommate.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, she was just—” Rey shrugs. “Are you staying close by? I didn’t even ask you if this place was out of your way…”

“Not far. And I drove, anyway.”

There is an intensity about him. Quiet, moody, with a few dark undercurrents. Then again, Rey watches just enough CNN that she’s seen the spectacle of him aggressively answering questions, back during the days of his confirmation hearings, and she’s not convinced that the word ‘quiet’ could ever really apply to him.

Still.

A silence falls between them—not quite uncomfortable, but heavy. They study each other, first a simple, polite eye contact, then giving up and letting their eyes roam freely. Rey takes stock of his broad shoulders, his full mouth, the way his throat and jaw move as he tries to keep his gaze away from the skin left bare by her sleeveless dress.

“I’m glad you asked me to come,” he says, barely loud enough to be heard above the late-nineties rock music playing on the radio.

Something inside Rey softens.

“I’m happy you said yes.”

 

…

 

“A student.” Rey must notice the panic on his face, because she quickly adds, “Grad student. Engineering.”

“Master’s or PhD?”

She winces, taking a sip of her beer.

“PhD, uh?”

The way she scrunches her nose is—adorable.

God, he just thought the word _adorable_. In his head.

“Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I applied.”

“Is that why you work in that coffee shop?”

“Oh, I don’t really work there. I used to, during undergrad. But I’m still friends with the owner, so now I take a few shifts from time to time, if they’re desperate for someone to cover. Off the books.”

Rey takes another sip of her beer, and—Ben can pinpoint the exact moment in which it occurs to her that she just confessed to regularly earning undeclared taxable income to the current United States Secretary of the Treasury.

“ _Oh_.”

He just stares at her, expressionless.

“I mean—it almost never happens.”

He remains impassive.

“Like… twice. Tops.”

Silence.

“Actually, you know what? They don’t even pay me. It’s totally volunteer work—”

He attempts to keep his expression reproachful for as long as possible. When he feels his lips starting to curl, he tries to hide the smile behind the rim of his glass—and fails.

Rey notices.

“You _monster_!” She is laughing. “I actually thought my boss and I might end up spending the rest of our lives in jail.”

She throws a peanut at him. He catches it in his palm and sets it on the table.

“Just up to three years, actually. With a fine of up to two-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars.”

She eyes the peanut bowl again, and he quickly moves it out of her reach.

“Was that your trademark intimidating glare, by the way?”

“Yep.”

“Mm. Does it usually work?”

“Every time.”

“Well. Not with me.”

He raises one eyebrow. “It looks like it did work for a bit, there.”

“Maybe a little.” Still smiling, she leans back in her seat and looks him squarely in the eyes. “But never again.”

 

…

 

Ben just stands there, rocking slightly on his heels, jaw working in that endearing—okay, _sexy_ —tic he seems to have. He is clearly not about to kiss her, _the_ _idiot_ , even after hours of lingering glances to her mouth, so Rey takes matters in her own hand.

For the first time since she walked out of her apartment she is thankful for her heels—he’s so tall that he’d be utterly out of her reach, otherwise.

“This isn’t wise,” Ben says the second before her mouth makes contact with his, voice impossibly deeper than only a few minutes earlier. Her lips press into his, but there is no answering pressure, and for a second Rey thinks that maybe Ben wasn’t too nervous to kiss her.

Maybe he just didn’t want to.

She moves back a hairbreadth to search his eyes. _Then_ , then there is a stretching moment, long and full, in which they share the rarefied air between them and a million silent questions.

When he bends down to kiss her both his hands are holding her neck, and one large thigh slides between hers, pinning her to the wall next to the bar’s entrance.

 

…

 

“I’ll drive you home.”

“No, thanks.”

“Would you rather I call you a cab?”

Though it’s a stupid question, that he’s asking. Since she probably wouldn’t have gotten in his car to begin with, if that were the case.

“No,” she says, voice patient and kind.

Ben’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, knuckles going white. _This isn’t for the best,_ he wants to tell her. And so many other things with it.

“Are you sure?”

She nods with a smile, and Ben starts the car, resigned.

 

…

 

“Do you— _ah_ —do this a lot?”

Her hand has been casually lying on his abdomen for—it feels like at least ten minutes, though it might just be the case that the thought of her fingers so close to… _yeah_. It might just have blown his sense of time into a million pieces.

He reluctantly stops running his teeth down the column of her throat and eases back, stopping halfway to press a kiss into her collarbone. When he looks up, her face is unfairly beautiful. Her eyes are clear, while Ben knows his own to be glazed.

He has to clear his throat.

“What?”

“I said, do you do this a lot?”

He doesn’t quite know what she means, by 'this'. It could be anything. Do you have sex a lot? Do you take women back to your place? After barely one date? After they didn’t even let you pay for their beer? Do you sit on your couch and make out with them for over one hour, completely dressed, as if you were still sixteen? Do you fancy yourself in love at first sight?

It doesn’t matter, because the answer to each and every question is the same.

“No.”

“Ok. I—you’re not a player, right?”

It’s the first time in all of tonight—and in their very short acquaintance—that she looks anything but thoroughly self-assured. It must be why it all just rolls off his tongue.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, and then immediately wishes he could take it back. The words linger out there, as if with no place else to go, the meaning behind them coloring the air with something full, sweet and needy.

Maybe a little scary.

She doesn’t seem to mind. Not as far as he can tell, but it might just be because she leans further into him to press a kiss into his temple, and he can’t quite see her face anymore. Ben wonders how badly he has fucked this up when she angles her head deeper into him, her lips in line with his ear and her voice soft and vulnerable.

“I dreamt of you, three nights ago. We were hiking by the Hudson river, and I kept slipping on the stones, they were so slick. You put your hand on my waist, and caught me before I could fall.” The shape of her mouth against the shell of his ear makes his world shift on its axis, and his cock so hard it hurts. “You were so warm, and solid. I couldn’t bear waking up.”

 

…

 

He only slips inside her easily because she is more wet than she’ve ever been. It’s still a tight fit—too tight for the first few thrusts, even though he has prepared her well. First with his mouth, long, relishing licks that had her mind white out and her heart spill over— _don’t come_ , he had to remind her, _not yet_. And then with his fingers, kissing her deep as he made room for himself inside her.

They’re using her lone condom, because he doesn’t have any, not a single one in this huge, expensive, empty apartment that for some reason makes Rey’s heart squeeze tight. His expression as she rolled it on him, her moves more than a little rusty from disuse, had been almost otherworldly.

Very flattering.

Rey expects awkwardness, and there is some _—wait, can I… Like this? God, God, yes, like this_ —but his cock is dragging deliciously against long-unused muscles, and his stubble feels heavenly on her sensitive breasts, and there are grunts and groans and hazy smiles and filthy wet sounds that drive Rey completely out of her mind.

“Is this okay?” he asks a million times, pressing deeper and deeper, and she whispers back a million times, “Please. Please.”

It’s only a few minutes in that she realizes that she’s already close—so close—and they haven’t done half, a tenth of the things she wanted from this. She can feel herself contract around him, the vague hope that he won’t find this disappointing an ever distant thought in her head.

She comes as he holds both her wrists right above her head, his voice pitched low as he swears into her skin that he’ll never let her go.

 

…

  

“Can I shower?”

_No_. _Not if you’re going to leave afterwards._

He tries to keep the sulkiness from his expression. “Sure.”

Ben knows it’s summer, and the thermostat of the room is set so that the temperature cannot possibly be too cold. Nonetheless, a chill runs down his spine when she moves away from him.

She sits on the side of his bed for a minute, lifting up her hands and arching her back in a graceful stretch. Her neck, her spine, the sharp dips of the dimples at the small of her back—it’s as if there is nothing about her that isn’t made with him in mind, to his very own specifications.

He _really_ —he doesn’t mean to, but of its own volition his arm reaches out for her torso and cups a full breast from behind. Her hand slides down to join his, and for a moment he thinks she will swat him away— _space, he should give her space_ —but her fingers twin with his as she looks down, an oddly intimate contact.

It lasts too little, and she stands with another stretch, her footsteps light as she makes her way to the en-suite. There is no trace of self-consciousness in her nakedness.

Her ass _. God_ , her ass. He’d like to—

“Do you have conditioner?”

“Con—Um, what?”

“For your hair?”

“Ah…no. No, I don’t think so.”

She bends down to pick up something—her thong, a blue scrap of fabric that had his hands tremble a few moments earlier—and then sets it on top of his dresser.

Ben half hopes she’ll forget it there.

“You can join me, if you want. Save some water.” She is smiling, looking at him from over her shoulder. “You don’t have to, though. I know you guys hate the environment, and all that.”

 

…

 

“Slow.”

Ben ignores the hot water beating on his back and grunts in assent, fingers digging into her hips as he slides deeper, his groin flush with her backside. She wants him to fuck her slow, and he will fuck her slow. He can. Starting from the next thrust. Or the following. Or maybe—

She actually laughs, reaching down to lay a hand over his. She’s bracing herself against the tile, her forehead leaning on her arm, and it’s the perfect position for him to—

“This is— _ah_ —really nice, but maybe—if we go slower…”

_It will last longer,_ she means. Which Ben wants, too. But he also really wants to—

“I’m trying.” God. She feels _unbelievable_. “I promise I’m trying.”

He probably shouldn’t come inside her. Since they’re out of condoms, and even if they weren’t they wouldn’t have thought to bring one into the shower, and funny, how he’s managed not to have sex for so long— _God. Years, now?_ —but now snug inside her is his only desirable state of being. He probably shouldn’t come inside her, but she said it’s okay, and Ben’s not _that_ strong. His orgasm from earlier—like an avalanche, but only after he teetered on the brink for long moments, feeling as if he was about to die—still has all his neurons hum in chorus.

Or maybe it’s just Rey’s presence.

“I’m not going anywhere. You can go slow.”

She twists her torso and angles her head, and he knows to bend down and kiss her, the taste of water sweet against her lips.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she repeats against his mouth, and he doesn’t dare believe her.

 

…

 

”Okay. Did you really tell a reporter who pointed out that there are people who can’t afford fresh vegetables ‘Let them eat cake’?”

Ben looks up from peeling an apple, horrified. “ _No_.” He might be morally dubious, but even he has his limits.

“Interesting. Then you have something in common with Marie Antoinette.” Rey’s sitting on top of the kitchen island, wearing the old Harvard Debate Team t-shirt he usually sleeps in. _I’m hungry_ , she told him after the shower, when her flat tummy had growled right as Ben was kissing it. He’d pretended to be annoyed by the interruption and led her to the kitchen by the hand.

“I hadn’t heard this one. Where did you get it from?”

“Can’t remember. I think from one of my officemates—he is always on one political subreddit or another.”

He shakes his head. “Jesus.”

The way she laughs. It should be outlawed. Ben’ll see about writing a quick bill.

“Okay. Next. Did you really spend twenty thousand dollars of taxpayers' money for a standing desk?”

Ben cuts a wedge from the apple and hands it to her. “I don’t even have a standing desk.”

“Oh. Good. ‘Cause there is no real evidence that they have health benefits, you know?”

He’s never met anyone who eats quite like her. Like she’s relishing every single bite. He simply cannot look away.

“Ok. One more. Did you really yell at a kid and make him cry at a campaign event?”

“No—Well. Maybe. In… Ohio, I think, there was this baby in the audience who kept crying, and I was giving a speech. The two things might have been related—I have that effect on people, I’m told,” he adds drily.

“So you probably also haven’t paid a hitman to take out three of your interns who had dirt on you?”

“To salvage my pristine public image, you mean?”

Rey chuckles. “It must be weird. Not having any privacy at all.”

She says privacy the British way, and Ben—Ben could listen to her _forever_. He wants to.

“You get used to it,” he lies, offering her another slice.

“Still.” She quickly smiles her thanks before she bites into it. “I think I’d go crazy, if people could find out stuff about me from—I don’t even know. From a Wikipedia entry. That everyone can edit with whatever crap they want, no less.”

_Have you been on mine?_ Ben is almost tempted to ask, but it’s a terrible idea. He’s had similar conversations, and they never end well.

So he says nothing, and they’re quiet for a moment as she finishes chewing. He dries his hands on a kitchen towel, and then comes to stand in front of her, not quite touching her, palms leaning on the counter and bracketing her hips. This is as much space as he can stand to give her, at the moment.

“Though I guess it’ll be nice to just be able to google your birthday. I always mix up my friends’—I’m terrible at it.”

“My birthday is in seven months,” he tells her cautiously. Not any time soon.

“Good.” She smiles down at him. Like this, without makeup, he can count the pale freckles on her skin, he can trace a small white scar that almost dissects the outmost corner of her left eyebrow. Ben drinks it all up. “At least I have some time to figure out what to get you.”

His heart skips a heartbeat. He has nothing of value to offer this girl. And she has a lot to lose, just by associating with someone like him. Just by existing in his head the way she does.

“It’s not—” Ben closes his eyes and breathes deep. Opens them, and tries again. “ I can’t make any promises—” No. Not the right words, either. He sighs. “With my job being what it is, the situation can be… delicate.”

He’s not sure what kind of reaction to expect. From her.

“It’s okay. I understand.” Her hand slides over the counter to where Ben’s is resting. Covers it. Her smile is as beautiful as the early morning sun rising outside the window. “Can you take me out for breakfast, tomorrow? If you want to?”

He wants to. He really does.

“Yes.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [This is my Tumblr](https://ever-so-reylo.tumblr.com/), if you want to get in touch. LONG LIVE REYLO!
> 
> ETA: One of my fave people ever, [Raven-maiden](https://raven-maiden.tumblr.com/), commissioned [this breathtaking art](https://kayurka.tumblr.com/post/178100732644/i-was-commissioned-by-raven-maiden-to-draw-a) from one of my favorite Reylo artists, [Kayurka](https://kayurka.tumblr.com). I don't think I deserve it, but now it's here and I'll spend the rest of my life gazing upon it--do join me! <3


End file.
